Featured Image Credit: SpringTide
By Sarah Sharkey
Victoria’s Inner Harbour has been determined to be the most polluted body of water along British Columbia’s coastline. Pollution Tracker is the new program that collected the data on this observation.
Ocean Wise, a Vancouver Aquarium based global conservation group, developed this program as a way to track human contamination in important ecosystems and food chains in our oceans. The project is focused on the British Columbia coastline.
Sediment and mussel sample were taken from 55 coastal locations between 2015 and 2017. Four of these samples were within Victoria’s harbour. An array of chemicals was found on the coastline, but the four harbour sites all ranked in the top five most contaminated sites. The most concerning chemical found was polychlorinated biphenyl which is now a banned substance.
The City of Victoria was not happy with the results of the study, but not necessarily surprised by them. The history of Victoria’s harbour is very industrial, so the fact that some nasty chemicals are still in the water and food chain today is not shocking. Once these chemicals are in the water, it can be nearly impossible to get rid of them. Instead of breaking down over time, these chemicals will stick around forever and work their way up the food chain.
The accumulation of these chemicals in the food web is concerning for struggling killer whale populations in the area.
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